


Gold Standard

by smilebackwards



Category: Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Olympics, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-14
Updated: 2016-08-14
Packaged: 2018-08-08 15:08:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7762594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smilebackwards/pseuds/smilebackwards
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ben is the second performer on floor exercise and Caleb watches as he centers himself before the first notes of Europe’s ‘Final Countdown’ start up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gold Standard

Ben is the second performer on floor exercise and Caleb watches as he centers himself before the first notes of Europe’s ‘Final Countdown’ start up. 

Caleb chose the music because, unless he’s with Caleb in the car, the only things Ben listens to are audiobooks and podcasts. He’d probably have picked something like President Obama reading the first three paragraphs of the Constitution if left to his own devices. Caleb isn’t saying it wouldn’t have been a great routine, but it would have lacked some of the energy leant by guitar riffs.

Ben’s head almost brushes the floor on his first element and Caleb is terrified and amazed, like he’s been terrified and amazed by Ben since they were children.

Ben had shot up to 5’8” by the time they were sixteen and his coach at the time had taken him aside and told him, gently, which was probably the worst part of it for Ben, that he was just too tall for competitive gymnastics. 

Caleb still remembers it like yesterday. Ben had left the gym and come to the lake where Caleb was paddling in circles and calling it training. Caleb had seen him appear on the dock. Even from two hundred feet he’d known something was wrong by the outline of Ben’s body: shoulders thrown back, chin up-tipped. The defiant body language of someone determined not to cry. Caleb’s sure he clocked his fastest time all year rowing in to meet him. 

Ben climbed into the canoe when Caleb came up alongside the dock. He leaned forward against Caleb, forehead resting on his shoulder, and Caleb put his hands behind Ben’s back and let him think things through in silence the way he sometimes needed to.

Five minutes later, Ben raised his head. “I’m going to win an Olympic gold medal in gymnastics,” he said, a fierce, certain light in his eyes. 

“I know,” Caleb said. It wasn’t something he’d ever thought was in doubt.

He doesn’t doubt it now either, ten years later, watching Ben complete his second tumbling pass, flawless.

Caleb wants this for Ben more even than he’d wanted his own medal, tucked safely under his shirt, the gold warm against his skin. Not just the team gold the U.S. has already won or the individual pommel horse that Ben is the overwhelming favorite for later in the week, the all-around gold that proves Ben is the best male gymnast in the world when everyone said that he was too tall, too old, too consistent—as if that were a _bad_ thing—not enough heart. 

Ben does a triple twist to end his final pass and when he sticks the landing, the crowd goes wild.

-

Pommel horse is Ben’s best event. His start value for difficulty is a full point ahead of the next highest competitor and, more than that, he _loves_ it. Ben spends twice as much time on the pommel horse as any other apparatus.

Ben and Caleb finally bought a house a few years back. Ben made a pro/con list for all the ones they looked at and Caleb had felt a little bad because most of the pros about the final house were things that Caleb liked: lake access from the backyard, energy-efficient lighting and insulation, a fixer upper deck he could putter around with. But Ben had also put ‘makes Caleb happy’ on the pros list along with ‘nice kitchen’ and Caleb loved him so much it was almost physically painful.

A month after they moved in, unpacked boxes still littering the hallway, Caleb had woken up to find Ben’s side of the bed empty. That in itself wasn’t particularly unusual. Ben was the early riser between them. What _was_ unusual were the muffled sounds coming from the kitchen. Ben didn’t make breakfast anymore after the three times he’d almost burned down their apartment. 

Caleb pulled himself out of bed. He wasn’t going to lose this house. They’d just bought it.

He skidded into the kitchen and stopped dead. The glass fruit bowl, more populated by high-energy protein bars than fruit, and the artistically hung copper pots that Caleb was never actually going to use to cook anything had been carefully relocated and Ben was doing his goddamn pommel horse routine on the kitchen island. 

“Oh my God, is this the reason you liked this kitchen?” Caleb asked. 

Ben dismounted sheepishly. He didn’t say no, because they didn’t lie to each other.

“This is polished marble,” Caleb said, tapping the countertop. “You’re going to slip and injure yourself. We can get a proper pommel horse for the garage if you can’t stand to be six miles away from the nearest one.”

“All right,” Ben agreed.

There were chalkdust handprints all over the island. It looked like Ben had laid down flour to roll out bread dough. Caleb laughed so hard he couldn’t breathe and dragged Ben back to the bedroom to put handprints all over Caleb’s skin.

Caleb watches Ben travel the entire length of the horse twice and scissor up into a handstand before doing several dizzying pirouettes and dismounting perfectly. He makes it look easy. He’s going to win.

-

If Ben has a weak event, it’s the still rings. It’s the area where his height really does hurt him most. The length of Ben’s arms means he has to work twice as hard against the torque of his bodyweight. 

But Ben’s never minded working twice as hard at anything. He’d dialed back the gymnastics for a few years when they turned eighteen and went to Yale. Double major in History and Education.

“Proud of you, Tallboy,” Caleb said at his graduation, reaching up to skew Ben’s mortarboard.

“I’m still going to win that gold,” Ben told him.

“I know,” Caleb said.

-

Anna slips into the seat Caleb’s been holding for her right before Ben’s turn on vault. Her hair is damp. Caleb doesn’t even need to ask whether she made it through the semi-finals for the 100m breaststroke. “Ready to win another gold tomorrow night?” he grins at her.

“Shh,” Anna says, poking him in the side. “How’s Ben doing? A point ahead? Two points?”

“One-point-one,” Caleb says. “He always loses some ground on rings.” Vault too, but Caleb’s not going to jinx it. “Abe’s in third position.”

“Where are Abigail and Mary?” Anna asks, looking around the stands.

Caleb points up and to the right. The nosebleed seats. Gymnastics is always popular and the best seating is reserved for family, but Caleb, Ben, Anna, Abigail, Abe and Mary have been going to each other’s competitions, rain or shine, for years. They’ve sat on floors and climbed trees, pooled money for high-powered binoculars to get the best view and cheer. 

Ben insisted on the same support for the other U.S. athletes in Rio during his few allotted rest hours. Caleb would have happily spent the time exploring the city and finding somewhere to order _picanha_ but he’d let Ben drag him to the equestrian course, which was why they were in the stands for Benedict Arnold’s epic and embarrassing meltdown after failing to medal in eventing.

When his score was announced, Arnold had stared at the judges as if they’d personally insulted him and stalked out of the stadium, pushing angrily past all the cameras and microphones. Caleb hopes Arnold defects to the Great Britain team the way he’s been threatening if he competes in the next Olympics, but he doubts they’d want Arnold either after that charming display.

Watching Anna that night in the 200m breaststroke on the other hand had been practically transcendent. She blew past the world record and touched the wall a full second and a half in front of the silver medalist from Sweden. Ben and Caleb cheered like mad, their raised voices echoing against the tile along with the rest of the crowd. Abe, Mary and Abigail were doing the same beside them. Abigail was still in her swimsuit from the preliminaries of the 10m platform where she qualified for the semi-finals easily. 

Anna hugged the swimmers in the lanes on either side of her and climbed out of the pool, beaming and waving toward the stands. Caleb hoped she could see them. He should have made a sign. Setauket Six.

They’ve been the subject of dozens of ‘there’s something in the water in Setauket, Long Island’ articles and Caleb expects there’ll be plenty more with the way they’ve all been raking in medals. Mary started them rolling with a gold in trap shooting and they haven’t stopped since. Caleb in canoe slalom, Anna in breaststroke, Ben and Abe in the gymnastics team event and ongoing individuals, and Caleb expects Abigail to round them out next week with diving. Philadelphia likes to claim Abigail since she moved there for training a few years back but they can suck it.

Ben hops forward on the vault landing and Caleb can read his disappointment in himself even as Washington and Abe put comforting hands on his shoulders. He’s in second position now with just two more events to go.

-

Ben hangs on through parallel bar. Caleb can see Robert in the stands a few rows away, beside his father, nodding along as Ben completes each skill. 

Caleb still doesn’t know what Abe did to convince Robert to join the Olympic team after he’d retired two years ago due to an ACL tear, but he’s fantastic on the parallel bars and Samuel Townsend appears to have adopted Abe as a second son. Caleb’s glad because Richard Woodhull is an asshole who said _on national television_ that his disappointment over Abe not going to law school outweighed any pride he felt in Abe’s gymnastic accomplishments.

Caleb would have egged Judge Woodhull’s house for that if Ben hadn’t seen him raiding the refrigerator and stopped him. They’d both refused any interviews with FOX afterwards for airing it. Ben’s father, who’s watching the Games in on the tiny television set in the church basement with half the rest of the town, had given an extremely pointed sermon about loving one’s children for who they were the Sunday after.

Ben rounds out another solid performance and when the score comes up it puts him back to first position, 0.3 points ahead of Lafayette as they move to the last apparatus.

Lafayette actually shared a gym with Ben for a few years, training under Washington, and despite competing for France, he loves America so much Caleb doesn’t doubt he’ll sing along to the national anthem if Ben comes out on top of the podium. Not if, Caleb corrects himself. When.

-

High bar is one of Ben’s strengths and the start value for his routine is half a point more than Lafayette’s but he’s last in line to compete and despite the calm facade he’s always praised for by commentators, Caleb knows how keenly Ben feels the pressure.

Abe performs a solid routine that guarantees him the bronze. Ben smiles and hugs him when he comes off the mat.

Lafayette does the two connected releases he’s famous for, posting a 14.933, and Ben steps forward into starting position. 

Anna grips Caleb’s hand so tight it hurts and he holds back just as hard while Ben does a perfect handstand along with four great releases and builds momentum for the dismount.

Six months ago, when Ben presented the idea of adding another half turn to the dismount of his routine, Washington had expressly told him not to do it. Ben, of course, had interpreted that to mean ‘don’t do it where I can see you’ and instead took to practicing it in the gym after-hours with only Caleb for a spotter. Caleb feels his heart in his throat every time Ben does it now because he’d had to catch him literally hundreds of times before Ben could perform it consistently. Any miscalculation in balance or rotation and Ben could land on his back or, God forbid, his neck. 

Ben could probably win gold with his original dismount if he landed it cleanly, but Caleb knows he’s going to go for the extra half turn because Ben can never give less than his best.

It feels like the longest two seconds of Caleb’s life as he watches Ben twist through the air, then Ben’s feet hit the mat and stay there. Stuck landing. Gold. 

Ben grins straight up at Caleb as he waves to the crowd before hugging Abe and Lafayette and going to wait for his final score. Fifteen points at least. “Well done, Benjamin,” Caleb reads off the warm, reserved curve of Washington’s lips as he races down to the first row.

“Ben!” Caleb shouts when he gets to the the lowest step. He leans over the rail. Ben has to stand on one of the folding chairs to reach him. He cups Caleb’s face with his chalky hands and it’s going to leave Caleb’s beard white and itchy but none of that matters when Ben’s kissing him. Caleb’s gold medal has slipped out from his shirt, hanging in the air between them.

One of the things Caleb appreciates about the Olympics is that every moment is filmed and photographed from every conceivable angle. He’ll have no trouble finding a picture of this to use for the Christmas card.

The cheering from the crowd rises even higher and Caleb and Ben break apart to look at Ben’s final score on the board. A whopping 15.466. 

“I told you I was going to win that medal,” Ben says, his smile brighter than any gold.

“I know,” Caleb says, and kisses him again.


End file.
